I once dated for a few months a desi sister who remained my friend. She had separated from her longtime boyfriend, who was African-American. Her family\u00c2\u2019s disapproval was one of the big stresses on their relationship. So it was quite a step when they got back in touch and rekindled. I was honored to be privy to this, and with it, to R.\u00c2\u2019s management of her parents\u00c2\u2019 anxieties.<\/p>\n\n
The next year they married, in her family\u00c2\u2019s backyard in Orange County. The aunties were in full effect, all gossip and jewels and rolls of flesh. They inquired hungrily as to my status. The uncles were hanging out. R. and W. sat before the pandit, soaked in sweat from their garments, the fire and the summer heat. No one was paying any attention. Except, that is, for W.\u00c2\u2019s family, a cortege of beautifully turned out Black folks from Arkansas and Texas. They sat for hours in the sun, sole occupants of the front row, wearing looks of deep confusion. I believe I was the only guest to attempt to explain the proceedings. The aunties looked right through them.<\/p>\n\n
The wedding was a triumph for R.; her parents, lovely people, had come around. But it said little for the community\u00c2\u2019s readiness to miscegenate in the blackward direction. That pesky little problem, which many mutineers will be at least anecdotally familiar with, is not<\/em> one of the themes of Lavina Melwani\u00c2\u2019s article \u00c2\u201cThe Color of Desi<\/a>\u00c2\u201d in the January 2006 edition of Little India (shout-out to Cinnamon Rani).<\/p>\n\n The article is a positively giddy celebration of desi mixitude: <\/p>\n\n In fact, it turns out, desis are straight-up cultural pioneers:<\/p>\n\n The story goes on to introduce us to a variety of mixed couples or children thereof. (Like the white-desi couple who named their kids Britteny, Bradley, Brijesh and Bhavika.) Each one tells us of the stresses or joys of balancing their two cultures. The one sister we meet who has married a Black man, Nisha Kutty, lives in the biracial paradise of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Kutty is self-aware:<\/p>\n\n The article refrains from developing that angle, lest perhaps it upset the ambient happiness. Instead we move on to a half-Scandinavian sister for whom \u00c2\u201cThe white and Indian issue is not a big deal in terms of being a problem of identity.\u00c2\u201d<\/p>\n\n There\u00c2\u2019s more here than a single blog post can handle \u00c2\u2013 long held ethnic and racial prejudice, notions of immigration and assimilation, the dreaded Model Minority question, a whole lot of class issues, and intergenerational stuff as well. I\u00c2\u2019m not going to pretend to develop all these themes, some of which have been touched on here before.<\/p>\n\n Still, being biracial myself (my moms is Jewish American) I\u00c2\u2019ve always held a special interest in these topics. During my guest residency here, I\u00c2\u2019m going to try to assemble some thoughts, throw out some questions, and hopefully report on some experiences that folks are having out there. The politics of mixing are my concern. If you\u00c2\u2019re half-Black, are you desi? If you\u00c2\u2019re half-white, are you a person of color? Are there desi quadroons, octoroons?<\/p>\n\n And beyond the labels, which anyone can put on or remove at will, what do these identities mean to you politically, living in the United States, or in the other multiracial societies where Mutineers dwell?<\/p>\n\n Peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I once dated for a few months a desi sister who remained my friend. She had separated from her longtime boyfriend, who was African-American. Her family\u00c2\u2019s disapproval was one of the big stresses on their relationship. So it was quite … Continue reading Think Halle Berry, think Tiger Woods, think Saira Mohan, think Lisa Ray, Sarita Chowdhury.
\n\nThese are the faces of the future, faces where cultures and races blend, where different essences combine to create a new fragrance — haunting but you\u00c2\u2019re never quite sure of what it is. Musk? Attar? Tuberoses? Or a mix of all?
\n\nWelcome to the brave new world of children of intercultural unions, families that defy the old rules \u00c2\u2014 hopscotching over national borders, criss-crossing cultures and a babble of languages to create a new race, a new reality. It\u00c2\u2019s almost as if the great showman in the sky, sitting in his director\u00c2\u2019s chair and bored with the same old, same old, is experimenting and bringing some pizzazz to the leela or celestial play.\n<\/blockquote>\n\nWhat will surprise Indian Americans, however, is that they at the front of the ranks. According to the 2000 US census, 220,000 Indians \u00c2\u2014 almost 12 percent of the total Indian population of 1.9 million \u00c2\u2014 identified themselves as multiracial, i.e. they listed themselves as Indian and one other racial group, which is five times the national average of 2.4 percent. Nationwide, almost 2.5 percent of all Whites, 4.8 percent of Blacks and 14 percent of Asians identified themselves as multiracial.<\/blockquote>\n\n
America is still so much about race \u00c2\u2013 even though it likes to think it\u00c2\u2019s not \u00c2\u2013 so will she face any special challenges bringing up Surya? Without blinking an eyelid, Kutty says, \u00c2\u201cYes, definitely I will. I think if I had married someone white the whole story would have been different.\u00c2\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n